As part of the massive forum & database upgrade last week, we finally launched the new version of JoeUser.com.

Originally launched in fall of 2003, JoeUser took a unique approach to blogging.  Instead of having users sign up and create blogs that existed in a vacuum, so only they and people they specifically gave the link to would ever read it, JoeUser took a community approach to it.  Based off of our success in building communities such as WinCustomize, and surrounding our games like Galactic Civilizations, we created a site where what you posted was highlighted and promoted to other users visiting the site.  The front page had articles featured by site admins which were particularly popular or insightful, and every user could keep tabs on the newest articles and most active discussions via the site sidebar.

But nearly 5 years later, the site had grown long in the tooth.  It was slow, unstable, and virtually impossible to maintain/update.  So we set aside some time and resources to give it a complete overhaul.

Now, after months of development, we launched the site to the public.  While we're still ironing out a few kinks here and there, the launch so far has been a great success.  Stability, speed and expandability have seen huge improvements.  We're also getting closer to being competitive on a feature-by-feature basis with some of the most popular blogging sites out there.  All while retaining the community focus that made JoeUser a success in the first place.

I'm sure many here are wondering why JoeUser would matter to WinCustomize (forum cross-posting complaints aside).  Well it's simple.  JoeUser is a site we have a greater degree of freedom to experiment with.  JoeUser was the driving force behind the database upgrade which has provided huge speed and stability improvements to WC forums.   It is also the site we're testing new technology on before moving it over to WinCustomize in future site updates.  We have big plans for future expansions to WinCustomize, areas of the site that will benefit hugely from the work being done on JoeUser.

So if you're at all interested in this thing called "blogging" or want to see what new & fancy features our net dev team is working on, head on over to JoeUser and give it a spin.  You might actually like the site and stick around